Talk:Shogun Empire/@comment-75.37.2.123-20130701060435/@comment-75.37.2.123-20130703175200
Thank you for the reply. That being said, what you're describing (especially early on) doesn't make sense or match with what the faction description implies. To start with, having the early Tokugawa doing it isn't just different (since it's an Alt History, that much is foreordained), but going against literally *centuries* of tradition about the role of the Emperor, the Shogun, the Imperial Court, the Bakufu, and the nobles in Japanese politics. It's absolutely not a continuation of what had happened before, and it's actually so out of the blue I really can only attribute it to either a massively different event (another, more severe invasion of Japan that forces the Emperor to be active and join hands? A successful conspiracy?) or someone some sort of profound spiritual revelation and/or personality change for the Shogun in question. To start with, I would not say the Tokugawa- or much of anybody between the downfall of the Southern Court and the Modern Era- as having a "ferverent belief that their God-Emperor" or "worshipping" the Emperor period. Certainly not to the extent that they believed they were obliged to conquer the entire world (prior to the Meijii restoration and especially the troubled 20th century) for him. And *certainly* not to the extent of sacrificing the power Ieyasu and co had spent so much blood accumulating by giving the Emperor an actual say. To use a comparison Westerners at the time did, the Japanese Emperor was like the Pope, but the Shogun was like the Emperor. It's tre that the majority of the Japanese have always had a reverence for the Imperial line, and at least a stated belief in its' divine lineage, and it was customary for just about any Japanese government to pay deference to the Emperor and the Court and meet their needs. But just like how many leaders pay deference to the Pope and the Catholic Church, this *in no way* meant that the HRE was willing to slavisly follow the Pope, and it certainly would not mean that the Bakufu (as we know it) gave the Imperial Court serious power or that much deference. If anything, the Tokugawa- including the Tokugawa of the time period in question- were extremely cagy around the Court, and always made sure to reinforce both the separation of the Imperial Court and the Bakufu, and the Shogunate's power. In fact, a number of incidents were actually more or less the Shogunate spitting all over the Imperial Court and the Emperor in order to reinforce that- while yes the Emperor is of divine lineage unbroken and deserves reverence- they were the guys in charge. They only considered a merger with and that much deference to the Emperor and the Court towards the very end. However, saying that this was "under duress" and "under exceptional circumstances" is an understatement, and even then there was never really a plan to accord the Emperor *that much* unrestrained deference. or power. So having the early Tokugawa- who had no effective opposition- do this would be vastly surprising, and deserves a really compelling explanation for why they suddenly did such an unprecedented move and an utterly unknown attitude in the 17th century. So right there we already have a major difference other than "WWI didn't happen." As for embracing expansionism, I have far less of a problem because there actually is precedent. I just figure it should be explained more. Also, putting it as "WWI didn't happen" is still a major issue. Firstly, the reason for the Depression was not only that "Europe" refused to trade (in addition to the US and other foreign markets), but because A: Japan enjoyed a long stint of success being a lender and broker during WWI, and what comes up must go down, B: Japan was still hurting from the costs of its' early wars (especially the Russo-Japanese War), and C: the Depression (caused in large part by the End of WWI) led the US to enforce an insanely stupid tarrif that led everybody else to putting up insanely stupid tarrifs in turn, which killed trade. The timeline we have here would change that dramatically. Not only can we NOT assume that everything is the same under an expansionistic Shogunate-Empire (or we'd have to explain why it is), but the main PoD actually creates a number of issues that screws with your assessment. First, there's an even bloodier and larger war going on in Europe than WWI, which has been going on for even longer. Namely: the Soviet horde's invasion. This puts Japan in a ripe place to exploit it ecconomically like it did WWI, which would cause an *ecconomic boom.* At least until relations sour bad enough, or if relations were already sour enough that trade was impossible. Secondly, the Soviets would likely try to occupy huge swaths of China and Korea, even moreso than the Tsarist Regime's occupation of Manchuria and Port Arthur, which led to the Russo-Japanese War. Which would have almost certainly pulled the Japanese into war with the Soviets (especially if the S-E has actually *conquered* those areas already), and probably cooperation of some kind (at least initially) with the Western powers of the UR and EA, and again stimulating development, not recession. The main benefit is that issues with the West and militancy didn't start in Japan during the 1920's or '30's, they just became mainstream then. And under the changed circumstances, who knows if those emerged earlier? The problem is that the reasons and timeline at present don't match yet.